The beauty of childhood
Author: Wei Zhizhi
Human beauty is the result of cultivation. Intentional cultivation and unintentional edification affect people's aesthetic tastes and aesthetic pursuits.
My childhood was in a period of poor color. Living in the countryside, in addition to the blue sky and white clouds, it is green mountains and green water, each color is very pure, not mixed with a little impurity. But there was no special enjoyment in life, and now that I think about it, it was a luxury of the utmost. I recall sitting on the hillside looking up at the blue sky, a few cotton-like white clouds slowly changing shape, a moment of pigs, a cow, a moment of unspeakable appearance; walking on the pond embankment, watching his own figure reflected in the water, looking down at him to make all kinds of grimaces, saying all kinds of boring words, issuing all kinds of inexplicable laughter; standing on the top of the mountain and watching the undulating peaks like waves, the green of the grass, the green of the trees, the tender yellow of the new leaves, the slope of the slope, the pieces, the carpets full of eyes - this feeling of beauty, the feeling of happiness, enjoy the explosion. But at that time, although it could not be said that it was blind, it was indeed taken for granted. The ordinary natural beauty of the childhood collection has become so mellow and rare after decades of fermentation!
Nowadays, the most common and sensitive feelings of people's aesthetics should come from clothes. The style, color and texture of clothes always stimulate people's visual nerves and greatly enrich people's aesthetic experience. But when I was a kid, there were only two styles of clothes: men's and women's. From the perspective of a rural child, there were no clothes to buy at that time, and all the clothes were made at home. The peasants grow their own cotton, spin their own threads, weave their own fabrics, dye themselves — say dyeing, that is, dye white cloth uniformly black — and then ask the master tailor to come to the house and make it. Whoever makes clothes for him will stop before the tailor, only measure the size, do not ask about the style. What the situation in the city was like at that time is unknown. The first clothing style I know of is called Zhongshan suit, which is something that only people with a little bit of status can wear. My father and brother never seemed to have. After I became the first high school student in my family, I also owned a zhongshan suit at home. There are only two colors, black and white. Later, with the cloth ticket, I went to the supply and marketing agency to pull (buy) the cloth, and it was mainly blue and gray, and there were also a small amount of red and yellow. Men's clothes are pure one color regardless of color, and there are almost no other colors to match. Women's clothes have a relatively rare "flower dress", the so-called "flower" is two colors spaced apart or printed with a simple pattern. The boy's greatest wish is to have a yellow military uniform, which would be better if he could carry a yellow school bag; the girl would be satisfied if she could wear a big red cotton jacket for the New Year, and if she had a bib, it would be too happy. The lack of style and color is originally the cause of poverty, but if it is labeled as political, it is spiritual corruption. Beauty can only hide in the dark to peep.
When it comes to clothing, there are hats and shoes. When I was a child, it was cold in winter, and I got up in the morning, and the eaves were covered with ice, thick with bowls, long rice handles, and a long row of neat rows. The pond was full of ice, and even people could walk on the ice. On the way to school, there was either an ankleless snow quilt or a dog's teeth growing from the soil, which was one or two inches long. As soon as the morning wind blew, the knife on his face blew, and his head was cold. When I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, I bought a yellow military hat at the supply and marketing agency, and the moment I put it on, happiness rippled around like a boulder smashed into the water, traveling through time, through space, all the way to the present, to my body. The hat was not only warm, it was also particularly beautiful, and I wore it all year round. My whole life has been handsome for a few years. As for the shoes, both adults and children are made by themselves, the style is more monotonous than the clothes, and the color is also all black. Speaking of which, I'm going to give a little bit of my yellow school bag. When I was studying, the dream of carrying a yellow school bag has not been realized, after joining the work, the first thing I did was to buy a yellow canvas satchel, and use it to hold a pair of shorts, a vest, carrying it for the first time in my life: from Yueyang upstairs to the boat, across the Three Gorges, on Chongqing, Guiyang, across Liuzhou, guilin, lasted for more than ten days. So the yellow of the uniform is the color that really entered my memory. The aesthetic fashion of an era is always wrapped in the aesthetic taste of the individual.
What really made me feel beautiful in my childhood was a set of furniture prepared by my eldest brother for marriage. Those utensils, which have no practical value to me, are attracted to me by the attributes of pure beauty. First of all, the big bed. The elegant shape, the delicate carving, the brilliant colors, made the world of my childhood gorgeous, and the beauty was like a seed buried deep in the soil suddenly sprouted. The various plant and animal patterns engraved on the bedposts and eaves are vivid and beautiful. The exquisite and vivid paint on the wardrobe and the exquisite painting are pleasing to the eye. Decades have passed, and I still remember a lotus leaf, a lotus arrow and a dragonfly painted on the left door of a cupboard; a plum blossom and a crane painted on the right door. On the left door of another cabinet is a egret in a paddy field, and on the right door is a group of birds in the sky. At that time, I used to stand alone in front of the closet and stare at it for a long time, thinking for a long time.
This self-consciousness of artistic beauty is not only unforgettable, but may also affect you for a lifetime. The books I read as a child were like that. Shanghai's "Youth Literature and Art" is a publication that has influenced me all my life. When I was a child, there were no books to read, there were no bookstores in the countryside, there were no books in my home, and even paper with words was difficult to see. By the time I was in junior high school, comic strips began to appear in the commissaries of supply and marketing cooperatives and even brigades, but there were very few of them, and there were more than a dozen kinds of them before and after. For example, "Armed Workers Behind Enemy Lines", "The Eternal Radio Wave", "The Gunshots in the Secret Bureau", "Mine Warfare", "Tunnel Warfare", etc., reading these books is mainly to read pictures and stories. What really made me feel the beauty was the article on "Shaoyi Literature and Art". At that time, I was able to initially appreciate the linguistic beauty of the article, such as fresh words, figurative sentences, lyrical paragraphs, expressive descriptions, etc., I would write them down, and sometimes use them in my own compositions. Those works have cultivated my image thinking ability, and I can transform language and words into vivid images and pictures in my mind. The structure of the story affected my composition conception, and I still clearly remember how the two articles "Tian Luo Girl" and "Lei Feng Is Back" affected my middle school entrance examination essay. I am also familiar with gao shiqi, Chen Bochui, Wang Anyi, Zhang Kangkang and other writers. It can be said that my literary aesthetic taste and aesthetic literacy are all laid by this magazine. Beauty doesn't speak, but it's always exciting.
The aesthetic of man was hazy at that time. There was a female classmate in the class who was particularly good-looking, and the two small dimples were always smiling and sweet. He is also a literary and artistic backbone, who can sing and dance. The male classmates in the class met together to discuss her, but I never did. She sat in the front row of me, and during class I would press her long hair on the table with pushpins, and when she stood up, she was pulled, and even the table was shaken, and she never got angry, and she smiled back, which was very charming. At that time, in the whole school and even the whole brigade, my writing level was relatively high. Every one of my essays was read in class and passed on to other schools. She and I were both members of the propaganda team, and at night we went to various production teams to "batch the forest and approve the holes", and most of the time we copied the articles in the newspaper from east to west and read them to the members. Still, I think she's talented. Her beauty is not only her appearance, but also the various temperaments on her body. Staring at her at that time was out of an instinct. Now that I think about it, if I remove her literary and artistic qualities, speech talent and eternal smile, her appearance is actually not a sinking fish, a goose, a closed moon and a shy flower. The beauty of the person as an aesthetic object is more complex, and the beauty produced is only an impression of a certain moment, because she is always an unfinished work. My relationship with her is purely beautiful and appreciative. It is human nature to love beauty, and children are no exception.
Simplicity is beauty, which is not necessarily true; but simplicity must be beautiful. The biggest feature of childhood is simplicity. As long as you look back, you must see the brilliance of beauty shining behind you.
About the Author
Wei Shuzhi, teacher. More than 200 poems have been published in newspapers and the Internet. There are works that are included in a variety of anthologies and annual rankings.
Image: Network